Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - No Conscience, No Fear - No Hands But Yours

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference."

Thomas Jefferson, Notes On the State of Virginia


"Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked.  What a man sows, so shall he reap."

Gal 6:7


"'Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?  You have not lied to man, but to God.'  When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.   And a great fear came upon all who heard of this. Some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, carried him out, and buried him."

Acts 5:4-6


“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.”

Teresa d'Ávila

Stocks were showing strength earlier in the day.  They were buoyed by a much better than expected Philly Fed report, due largely from expected orders.

Then some discouraging words were said about the trade negotiations between the US and China.   Thereafter stocks sold off, but recovered a bit into the close.

The US Dollar was marginally higher.  Precious metals gained back a bit.

The immanent hand of God is moving over this world.   Who can tell where it may fall?

Tomorrow will be a stock option expiration.

Have a pleasant evening.

In the garden of our Savior
No flower grows unseen
His kindness rains like water
On every humble seed
No simple act of mercy escapes His watchful eye
For there is One who sees me
His hand is over mine

[Verse 2]
In the kingdom of the heavens
No suffering is unknown
Each tear that falls is holy
Each breaking heart a throne
There is a song of beauty in every weeping eye
For there is One who loves me
His heart, it breaks with mine

[Chorus]
O the deeds forgotten
O the works unseen
Every drink of water flowing graciously
Every tender mercy You’re making glorious
This You have asked of us:
Do little things with great love
This You have asked of us:
Do little things with great love
Little things with great love

[Verse 3]
At the table of our Savior
No mouth will go unfed
And His children in the shadows
Stream in and raise their heads
O give us ears to hear them and give us eyes to see
For there is One who loves them
I am His hands and feet
There is One who loves them
I am His hands and feet

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Option Expiry On Friday

“Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors
and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.

Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away..”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, New Poems, City Lights


"Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried, the little children died in the streets."

W. H. Auden, Epitaph To a Tyrant


"All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born."

W. B. Yeats, Easter, 1916

Are we not exceptional?

Are you not entertained?

Another More Terrible Financial Crisis Is Coming— For the Benefit of a Few

"So we may not be that far away from the next bubble bursting, and I could imagine, if I think about policy, what we just talked about, with the end of a recovery cycle, we’ve pumped $4 trillion in this country, $30 trillion globally, into the economy with monetary policy.   So that’s tapped out.

We are now using fiscal policy to overheat a late-stage recovery in order to keep the Republicans in office.  We are doing nothing to bolster underlying growth with educational reform, infrastructure reform, et cetera."

Rana Foroohar, The Rich Have an Escape Plan


"I think it’s important in the power of finance and how pervasive this is throughout the economy, this has very little to do with Republicans and Democrats. In fact, some of the key opening doors for finance happened in the Clinton administration."

Paul Jay, Clinton's Committee To Save the World Unleashes Wall Street

Rana Foroohar is an associate editor and global business columnist for The Financial Times, and CNN’s global economic analysts. She’s the author of Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Bullshit Reigns - Stock Option Expiry This Week

"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.  But you do not belong to the world,  as I have chosen you from it."

John 15:18

Suffering is a means by which God saves us, afflicting us so we do not lapse into vain self-sufficiency, a pride and a perverse individualism that gathers us blindly into ourselves, and separates us from His own.   To suffer is how we grow in humility, and conform ourselves to do what He commands, rather than as we may will.

Prayer is how we sustain ourselves in times of both suffering and joy, with humility in this life, as we resort not only to ourselves or to the world, but to all things with God.

And so we find comfort in His will, and the conversations that we keep with His many tender mercies.  The world can not see this, and in not seeing does not understand.  To the world we are fools.

His consolations and comforts are hidden, delivered to us in quiet moments, heart to heart. And so He gathers us together to Himself, and keeps us safe, and slowly takes us from this world and the dark powers therein, that search endlessly for souls to make their own, and to devour.

Stocks and the precious metals slumped today as yields on US Treasuries climbed.  The ten year Treasury yield finished at the highest level since 2011.

This in turn greatly strengthened the US Dollar.   Bloomberg characterized this as a 'risk off' reaction to something or other that was not clear.  North Korea or Jerusalem?   The VIX took a leg higher.

The retail sales number was rather weak, which would not support higher interest rates per se.   Although there was an upward revision last month, and Empire Manufacturing did come in a big stronger.  All in all a zzzzzz.

The SP 500 yield has fallen below the 3 month Treasury yield.  And this is just the market to buy stocks for clipping coupons, right? lol.

Perhaps the market has decided that the Fed will be raising rates no matter what the productive economy is doing, which is not all that bad of a bet.  Unless there is an economic cataclysm.  The Fed seems to be self-absorbed and self-referential to a remarkable degree, having painted themselves into a corner with few places left to hide.

I suspect that gold was in an over-reaction   Many punters have noticed gold's tendency to bottom off the NFP-FOMC combination, and probably placed too many weak bets ahead of the curve.  Well, that is one possibility at least.

Or maybe the masters of the universe were just having a day.  Anything is possible when bullshit reigns.

I just checked and there it is, a stock option expiry this week.   The calendar included below.  Mary is not normally that big of a month for stock options as I recall.

"On Wall Street he and a few others - how many? - three hundred, four hundred, five hundred? - had become precisely that— Masters of the Universe. There was no limit whatsoever! Bullshit reigns."

Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities

Bullshit and faithlessness reign in our amoral wilderness.    And you-know-who is the King of the May.

Have a pleasant evening.